Trouble along a crucial border

Today’s editorial: A lack of security is found in between the U.S. and Canada. Nearly 4,000 unprotected miles leave too much at risk.

One quick, uneasy question above all in response to the government’s report on reinforcing the U.S.-Canadian border: Just 32 secure miles? Out of the entire, 4,000-mile stretch of land that runs from Maine and New Brunswick to Washington state and British Columbia?

And where might they be?

Along the northern border of New York, maybe? The heavily traveled Interstate 87 corridor heading to Montreal, maybe? Or Interstate 81, heading toward Ottawa? Adjacent to the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, perhaps?

We shudder to think of how the situation has deteriorated along the other 3,968 miles of the world’s longest uninterrupted border, especially with leaders of both governments warning that better security is essential for economic recovery for countries that have a $600 billion-a-year trade relationship.

The Government Accountability Office’s report lays it out in blunt, if somewhat vague, language.

Smuggling weapons becomes easier, of course. So does drug trafficking. Illegal immigrants and, yes, potential terrorists can enter the United States much more readily.

Pardon any Americans caught off guard, thinking that such security threats were more common to the U.S.-Mexican border.

Forgive them as well for their exasperation over some of the reasons the GAO cites for such lax security. It turns out that petty, bureaucratic rivalries between the federal agencies responsible for patrolling the U.S.-Canadian border undermine what need to be coordinated efforts. Of particular concern are the clashes between the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and the Border Patrol. The former is responsible for investigating smuggling and contraband. The latter is responsible for border surveillance and does the initial interviews of people detained at the border.

Oh, the ironies. It was in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks that border security, even involving such close allies as the United States and Canada, became such a paramount issue. And it was in the investigation of those attacks that the rivalries between U.S. intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI and the CIA, were exposed as a contributing factor to an unprecedented security failure.

What has the United States learned in the past decade?

The timing of that question is critical. President Obama plans to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the White House today.Friday Their shared plans for better border security will be one of the main topics on their agenda. It would be encouraging if Mr. Obama could reassure Mr. Harper that he was representing a united effort, involving one approach, not two.

If the President can’t do a better job securing the border with a such a friendly nation, how can he be trusted to take on all of the more daunting challenges of foreign affairs?

2 Responses

I’m just curious whether you’d write the same editorial if this were the Phoenix Times-Union.

Yes, threats along our border with Canada must be dealt with, but given an active drug war along our southern border, along with smuggling of arms, drugs and people, as well as the realization that we can’t do everything while getting the national debt under control, we have to prioritize.

So Americans are surprised to learn that the worlds longest undefended border is actually largely undefended? What a shocking revelation. Next week perhaps we’ll learn that the border between California and Nevada is completely unguarded? And of course a terrorist could easily sneak into California in a shipping container.

Who cares that it’s poorly defended? The border really not need be defended at all. Canada is not a third world country full of terrorists. Based on the track record of terrorists entering North America, Canada should be more worried about the US allowing someone into the continent. As all the 9/11 hijackers came into the US legally straight from the middle east.

In fact trying to defend 4000 miles of open terrain is completely ridiculous, we shouldn’t even try. Just make some deals to secure the ports and airports all over Canada and the US, and let Canadians and Americans travel through the border like any other state border.